For Sore Eyes
by LadieLazarus
Summary: It's the eyepatch. Set during Mekanix.


Title: For Sore Eyes

Fandom: X-men

Pairing: Pryde/Wisdom

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: 040 Sight

Summary: It's the Eye patch. Set during the Mekanix series.

He knows something is wrong the minute that he sees her. He hasn't seen her in ages, but that doesn't stop his brain from immediately registering her emotional distress.

She's working the bar with a confidence that he's come to expect from her. She's doling out drinks, joking with regulars, dealing with drunk frat boys who try to get a little close to the hot brunette in the skin-tight leather that, to be honest, Pete prefers to Spandex. She's lighting cigarettes for patrons, and even smoking one herself eventually, but he notices that she drags the cigarette between ashtray and lips with a casual demeanor that belies her obvious fatigue. Well, obvious to anyone who knows her. And Pete Wisdom knows her. In the biblical sense.

When she gets to him, he orders a scotch, straight up, in the best American mid-west accent he can manage. He's never been any good at the accent, but he apparently manages to fake it enough for her, because she sidles over to the rack of bottles without a second glance, picking up two before turning around. There's a distinct sway in her hips that Pete figures she's developed as a sure-fire way to get a few extra dollars in tips. It might work on him.

She shows him the two bottles, and he points to the one on the left. A bottle of Glenlivet that's high liquid content pays homage to the mainly college crowd of the bar. She smiles and pours a hefty double shot into a glass and pauses.

"Water or ice?" She asks, and he shakes his head violently. She laughs, and he tells himself that it's not really the most beautiful sound in the world, but at this moment, he can't remember what that sound is supposed to be. "You remind me of an ex-boyfriend of mine. He couldn't stand ice or water, either."

"A fellow purist." Pete offers, and Pryde laughs again.

"That's one word for him. I've got a couple of others, quite frankly, that are a little higher on the list."

"Got it." Pete nods, taking a healthy pull from the scotch. "'s good."

"Yeah. I always liked Glenlivet." As she says that, he wants to to tell her that he remembers when she didn't like it very much, at all, and still made a face every time she tried it. He wants to ask if she still adds water _and _ice to her unholy abomination of a drink. However, thankfully, before they can discuss it further, a police officer at the other end of the bar gestures his empty glass, and she's swiveling down to the other side. Pete can hear her laughing as she goes. "Yeah, yeah, Harvey. I see you. You don't really think I'd forget about _you _do you?"

Harvey smiles, and Pete feels a little better knowing that she seems to have that effect on everyone.

"Nah. I know you wouldn't. When you gonna let me buy you dinner?"

"Harvey, we've been through this."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Your girlfriend, right?"

"Right. Besides, I've been out with guys like you. Law enforcement. Maybe all those guns are compensation." The other cops with him snort their amusement at their compadre being shot down. Pete wonders if it's a distraction technique or if Pryde has really taken up with a woman. That image shouldn't be as hot as it is, but what can you do?

Pryde moves through the bar, bussing glasses, bring refills, and lifting crates of liquor that he knows have to be a lot heavier than her effortless strength makes them look. He has another scotch at her polite inquiry, and then another. Finally, at about quarter to two, the bar is nearly deserted, and Pryde makes her way over again.

"So, Mr. Purist, gonna have another before we close this bad boy up?" She leans, one hand propped on her hip, the other on the bar in front of him. She's so close. He wants to touch her more than he's ever wanted anything in his entire life.

"Sure. But only if you have one, too." He smiles in, what he knows is a charming gesture. She smiles back, easily.

"You know what? That's the best offer I've had all night." She busies herself with getting another glass and bringing the bottle over to their little corner of the bar. She pours the drinks. He notices that hers is without adulteration. Interesting. "What shall we drink to?"

"Well, it's going on two, let's drink to three." Pete winks and she chuckles.

"Fair enough." She clinks their glasses together and takes a sip. He raises a cigarette to his lips and she grins. "Want me to get that?"

A glance to either side reveals that the bar, at this end, is empty. Pete grins, as well. His voice returns to its typical London slide.

"Nah, luv. I got it." Pete smirks, lighting it off of the end of his little finger. Her face goes from confusion, to fear, to anger, to sympathy, and back to confusion as her eyes take in his hair the minor adjustments to his face via contacts and the eye-patch. Her gaze lingering on the eye patch. It's fascinating to watch.

"_Pete. _But... you're dead."

"Apparently not." He shrugs. "I'd go with the 'Tales of my death' bit, but seems a bit cliché, yeah?"

"But I..." She looks around. "Hold on. Wait right there. I've got to close. Don't... don't move." Wry smile. "Don't die."

"Right." Pete finishes his cigarette, watching as she closes the bar with proficiency. She's ushering out the last drunks of the night, and counting down the registers. All the while, her eyes flit to him every few minutes, as though she's afraid that he'll vanish.

After she's done, she appears in front of him, with another glass of scotch in her hand. She leans across the bar and he tries not to look at the view of cleavage this maneuver displays. He fails, and as a result, he doesn't even realize that the fist is coming until he's picking himself up off of the floor.

"What the fuck, Pryde?" He snarls, checking for blood on his cheek. He finds none, but she could have drawn it if she wanted.

"Dammit, Wisdom! You let me think you were dead! I mourned you! I went to your fraking funeral, only to find out that you're not dead at all! You're alive! Alive and well! You son of a bitch!" She's pounding on the bar now, punctuating sentences by pounding her fist on the counter. He crawls back up to the counter, leaning against it a little more heavily than before.

"I'm sorry, Kitty." He really is. Especially when he sees tears in the corners of her eyes. She really did mourn for him. He figures, wryly, that she's probably the only one who did. He stands up and reaches for her in a gesture of compassion that, with anyone else, he'd never offer. But Pryde has never been anyone else.

She looks as though she's trying to figure out what do to next. He doesn't know who is more surprised, him or Pryde, when she grabs the collar of his shirt and hauls him in for a kiss. He wishes he'd have had more time to prepare for the unexpected move, so that he could respond a little more enthusiastically, but he's still too shocked to even begin to fully enjoy and appreciate it when she lets him go and he slumps back onto his stool again. She's still full of surprises.

He tries to tell himself that he wouldn't want her any other way, but the truth of the matter is that even if she currently sporting an acid green mohawk, weighing in at about 3 stone heavier than the last time he saw her, and had completely forgotten how to fight, he'd still want her.

She grabs her bag off of the back of the counter, and turns, smiling. She's halfway to the door before she turns around, and Pete's heart is already dangerously racing at the thought that he won't get to see her again and all he managed to do was get beat up and give her a pathetic excuse for a kiss.

"Coming, Wisdom?" She cocks a head towards the door, and he's off the stool and on his way out the door so fast that he'd be embarrassed if he's thought about it. At the moment, he can't think about anything, though, except her ass in that black leather as it sways up the street ahead of him until he catches up, and he slides his hand into the back pocket of those butter-smooth leather pants. He squeezes lightly and she giggles. "Whoa. Hold your horses, Wisdom. Not far." She grabs his hand, pulling him along behind her, and after what seems like a million years, they're in her apartment, and he barely has time to wonder if that fucking dragon is still around before they're shedding clothes, kissing, touching, groping, and stumbling their way into her bedroom.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Much later, he's standing by her bedroom window, smoking and watching the rain whip through Chicago without mercy. He's glad he's not out in it.

"So, Pryde? What'll your girlfriend think of this?"

Once again, she breaks into hysterical laughter until she finally calms down enough to answer.

"My girlfriend? You mean Xi'an? She's not really my girlfriend. She'd like to be, but unfortunately for her, I'm not into her that way." Kitty sits up in bed, hugging her knees to her naked chest. She rolls from bed, suddenly, putting on his shirt and buttoning it from the navel down and joins him at the window. "Boy, the rain really coming down."

"Yep. It's a wicked one. So no girlfriend?"

"Nope." She shrugs. "No threesome for you. Sorry."

"Not half as sorry as I am."

She snorts, hooking her fingers through the belt loops on his trousers, and drawing him a little closer. She takes the cigarette from his right hand, taking a few healthy drags before handing it back.

"You know, Pryde, I've never thought it was sexy when women did that before. I generally thought it presumptuous and annoying."

"There better be a but."

"There always is with you." He smiles, cupping her face with one hand before leaning down to kiss her slowly, thrilling inside when she moans and presses closer. But then, something occurs to him and he pulls back. "So, Pryde, not that I'm complainin', but any particular reason you felt like bringing me back here and shagging me senseless?"

"To tell you the truth Wisdom," she grins, unbuttoning the shirt once again. "I think it's the eye patch."


End file.
